


Ad Nauseam

by AliLamba



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Corporate, Alternate Universe - Office, Co-Workers to Friends to Lovers, Coffee, Corporate Espionage, F/M, Motorcycles, Office Sex, Porn With Plot, Slow Burn, Wasn't Really Going for Plot, Workplace Relationship, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:07:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25389523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliLamba/pseuds/AliLamba
Summary: Relena couldn’t remember a time when she’d particularly liked working with Heero Yuy.(For A Hot Summer's Night 2020 GW event from Discord)
Relationships: Relena Peacecraft/Heero Yuy
Comments: 17
Kudos: 61
Collections: A Hot Summer's Night 2020





	1. how do you take it

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [AliLamba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliLamba/pseuds/AliLamba) in the [A_Hot_Summers_Night_Gundam_Wing](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/A_Hot_Summers_Night_Gundam_Wing) collection. 



> Do I know anything about corporate espionage? Nope.

Relena couldn’t remember a time when she’d particularly liked working with Heero Yuy.

There was nothing particularly wrong with him. He completed his tasks on time. He never argued with her about a deadline or project. They were cordial in the breakroom. But it’s just – hmm.

She’s spent probably too much time and not enough time thinking about it, because every time they’re put together on something she remembers that she doesn’t particularly like him.

Not that she’ll ever complain.

“I think you should bring in Heero on this,” Treize is saying, and maybe it’s that more than anything which has directed her current reflection.

“I’m sorry?”

“Heero. I think he would be good on this.”

Relena gazes coolly at the documents in front of her, and then back at Treize. Intelligence gathering is a field she’d sort of happened into, and, well, she’s good at it, mostly because of a dogged determination to read _everything_ and a morose lack of social life. She’s been with ESUN Securities for over two years now, and appreciates that she’s made it to a first-name basis with the CEO. Who is currently ruining her day.

“I don’t know. I think another week and I could crack it.”

“It really couldn’t hurt to have him on board. Give it a try.”

She finds that she’s pressing her lips together; as much displeasure as she’ll show. She sighs briefly, and gives Treize a smile.

“Of course. I’ll go and speak with him right now.”

She’s not usually such a liar.

She skips lunch, dedicating an extra hour to getting to the bottom of what appears to be a bottomless pit of corruption and bribery, and the sky is getting dark when there’s a knock on her door.

“Come in,” she murmurs, without looking up.

And she forgets she said even that, so engrossed in her computer screen that she is, when she realizes, it’s eerily silent.

She looks up, and finds Heero Yuy in her doorway.

“Oh! Oh, Heero, you scared me,” she says, because she had, jumped a little.

“Treize asked me to come by.”

Relena leans back in her chair, focusing on her racing heart. Goodness he’s just so _quiet._ Anyway. Right. Treize. Heero. Her current assignment.

“Yes, of course. He...mentioned something..to me, earlier.”

Heero doesn’t respond, simply taking the seat across from her desk. He has to move a few files off of it first, much to Relena’s internal dismay. She’s not usually such a slob.

He sits and stares at her. Relena finds herself looking back at him, feeling her heartrate return to normal, again considering that idea in the back of her head: she doesn’t _like_ him. What is it? His dark brown hair is unkempt, most of the time. He could use gel or even a basic comb but apparently he prefers it to be all over the place. Most of the women here seem to think he gets away with it, according to bathroom gossip. He rides a motorcycle, which, she abhors, so maybe it’s that. And his dark blue eyes always seem...cold. Distant, even. _Reserved_. She can never tell what he thinks of her, and she does not like that at all.

Relena realizes she’s staring (back), and shakes her head with a polite and slightly self-conscious smile.

“Sorry,” she apologizes quickly. “It’s been a long day. Right. Treize sent you. I’ve been working on an investigation into…”

She quickly launches into her spiel, reviewing all of her pertinent research, the information she’s connected, the prime suspects and relevant parties. It takes well over an hour to explain it all, and she can’t help the thoughts that squirm in: he asks very few questions, but every once in a while, his eyes narrow, as if, he’s caught something she’s missed, or he disapproves of her theory. She wishes he’d just come out and _say it_ already. By the end she realizes her voice is getting soft, tentative. Is it really so obvious? What is she missing?

“And that’s where I’m at.”

Heero’s gaze is calculating as he reviews the papers she’d laid out in front of him.

“Hm.”

For a moment she feels rather uncharitable. _Hm?_ Is that all she’s going to get? Two and a half months of dedicated research and all she’s getting is a _hm?_

“I can see where you’d think this was the right conclusion,” he continues, “but you need to think broader.”

She’s momentarily stunned, and, she knows her silence isn’t making her look like an expert. She really wasn’t expecting a pat on the back, but, but this? Come on. “I beg your pardon?”

“This bank account shouldn’t have this much money in it. Don’t worry about it. I’ll take it from here.”

She puts a hand on the papers in front of her, because he’d just started to slide them toward himself.

“I’m sorry. Maybe I misunderstood. I was under the impression that Treize wanted us to work together on this.”

He peers at her, tilting his head just ever so slightly to the side. There’s too long of a pause.

“If you say so.”

She finds that her shoulders drop, a little.

“I’ll need access to every document in your search, as well as itemized lists of everyone you’ve spoken to and what they revealed.”

Relena nods. Her skin feels tight. Why is she suddenly feeling so...defeated?

He takes one more, probing look at the documents laid out on her desk, and stands. They make eye contact for a brief moment.

She supposes that someone else might find him handsome. Surely, he works out, and he has a decent sense of what clothes suit his tall, athletic frame. She knows that as a researcher he’s considered good, if not one of the best. 

There’s still, just...something.

“You did...good work,” he starts to say, and Relena at first feels she hasn’t heard him correctly. “I’ll...see you on Monday.”

She’s pretty sure the word is _gobsmacked_. Or _flummoxed_ , or something, as she watches him leave her office. Was that a genuine compliment? Goodness, who knows.

Relena frowns at her desk, thinking. Hmm. 

She spends the weekend going for a run and having lunch with Lucrezia (again), shopping at the farmer’s market with Duo and Hilde (again), and reading. She finishes another two chapters in her annual leisure read, and then she spends the rest of her time on the project. She’s injected with new vigor, she thinks, because she’ll be damned if she gets to the office on Monday and Heero Yuy has cracked the case before she has.

“I’ve cracked it.”

Relena’s shoulders sink. They were going to anyway, because, Heero Yuy was sitting at her computer when she walked in bright and early Monday morning, but, they sink a bit further because of what he’s said.

“No you didn’t,” she protests, because, he can’t have.

He glances at her; again cold, unfeeling.

“You did most of the legwork,” he offers, his voice just about the same. “You just missed some things.”

“That’s not possible.”

Heero leans back in _her_ chair and examines her. She stands up a bit straighter. 

Why does he always _do_ that? Stare at her, like this? Again she wonders what he makes of her. It doesn’t matter. She shakes off the unease and puts her larger tote bag on the empty chair just inside the door.

“May I sit down?” she asks, somewhat sarcastically, and Heero waves a hand at nothing as he turns back to her computer. Did he forget whose office this is? Hmph.

She drops her purse on the desk and pulls up a chair, so she can look over his shoulder. Heero gives her a sideways glance and scoots to the side so she can get closer, and she squints to figure out what she’s looking at. She frowns, then reaches for the mouse. There’s a moment where they have to figure out the spacing; Heero is between her and the desk, and he doesn’t relinquish the mouse immediately, so she has to duck under his arm and the wheels of their desk chairs run into each other – it’s this whole big thing. She ends up practically in his lap, so to speak; Heero leaning to the side so she can click through things.

“No but – “ she starts to say, and before she’s even finished Heero is sighing, leaning back around her, grabbing the mouse and opening another file. 

She reads it quickly, and her frown deepens. “But that would mean - “

Again, Heero clicks open another file for her to read, and she does so, silently.

Finally, she sighs in defeat.

“Alright,” she mutters, mildly petulant. She leans back in her chair. “You win.”

She’s still staring at the computer screen, so she doesn’t see the full extent of his little smirk.

“It’s not a competition,” he says, somewhat kind.

Relena casts him a deadpan expression. “Clearly.”

There’s a quick moment, where they’re looking at each other again. Quick and honestly inconsequential. But she’s realizing that it’s the first time she’s seen him smile, even a little bit. 

And it _is_ , just, a little bit, but surely it’s there; the little teasing quirk to his lips. He has nice lips. Interesting.

“Well,” she sighs, dropping her hands to her thighs. “Shall we go and tell the boss? He’s been waiting on this one for months.”

Heero stands with her. “Let’s go.”

Treize is very impressed with their work, of course, which is fine. Heero uses all of one sentence to make sure she gets proper credit (which she appreciates), but, you know. It would’ve been better not to have him there at all.

Because of course, there’s a new problem. 

Treize is so impressed with their hard work, he gives them another case.

Together.

Of course he does.

Relena makes some mild objections which are quickly overruled, and Heero says nothing. Not a single word. He simply nods, and then nods again, and makes more _hm_ noises, and that’s about it.

Lovely.

Relena likes to start new projects on paper. It’s a waste, surely, but there’s something really nice and logical about having things laid out in front of her, scribbling notes, having something to refer back to later.

She’s just printing out the first few things when Heero shows up at her door.

And – he’s brought coffee.

Interesting.

“I wasn’t sure how you took it,” he says by way of greeting, putting the mug of pale white coffee on her desk. It looks like it’s at least half creamer, which, is...interesting. She smiles up at him, bland and polite.

“Thank you.”

Working with Heero Yuy is…fine. It’s fine, honestly. They’ve never worked so closely on a project as they do on this one, and everything about it is…fine.

He shows up to her office every morning, and he learns how she _actually_ takes her coffee (dash of cream, no sugar), and how she likes to switch to tea throughout the afternoon. Heero drinks a single cup of black coffee in the morning and that’s it. He skips lunch most days, usually slipping some sort of nutrition bar out of his pocket around noon and eating it slowly, which is...unnerving, at first, but she gets used to it. Relena likes to eat at her desk too.

After a few days Heero has managed to carve out some space in the office that Relena has worked so hard for: a small table seems to keep his laptop bag constantly, and he prefers the armchair closer to the window when he works on his computer, which is most of the time. They start a board for information that Relena prefers to map out visually, and Heero keeps it updated. When she has questions she asks them, and he answers them, simply. She challenges him on very few things, but about half the time, she’s right, and Heero admits it readily, which is…nice.

Mostly they seem to work well in silence, which is, also nice.

“So, what’s it like working with Heero Yuy?” Catherine asks, holding on to the copier that Relena is waiting so patiently for.

“With – ?“

“Yuy, yeah. Is he as weird as he looks?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

Catherine smiles, conspiratorially.

“Come on. You guys have been holed up in your office for almost two weeks now. Everyone knows.”

Everyone knows – what?

“We’re working on a project together,” Relena shrugs. “It’s nothing personal.”

Catherine turns her grin back to the copier so she can check its progress. “Well, I’d certainly love to get _personal_ with Yuy one of these days.”

Relena sighs. “It’s definitely still on the table,” she assures her, and Catherine picks up her copies with a snort, leaving with a hearty wink.

Relena frowns at her back.

Is that…is that a thing, now? Are people honestly _gossiping_ about her, and, and Yuy? Goodness. People must be bored, if they’re resorting to something as silly as that. 

A part of her is annoyed that there might be something vaguely sexist going on: surely men and women are able to work together without there being implications of anything inappropriate. Right? She wonders, briefly, if Treize is under the same impression. Maybe she should clarify things with him. It wouldn’t be good for her career if Treize thought she was being so casual with the human resources policy.

Heero is explaining something to her. On some level she’s aware of this, but mostly, she’s distracted, looking at his face. He _is_ handsome, sure. And they’re about the same age. And maybe it’s his hair, or, maybe it’s the fact that she’s never brought anyone to the office holiday party. She knows he owns a leather jacket and can actually pull it off. 

Relena hasn’t been on a date for a few…oh no. It’s been months now; that’s hard to accept. She should go on more dates. Maybe casually mention to someone (Duo, maybe) that she’s casually seeing someone. In a casual capacity. Someone who also won’t show up at the office holiday party.

She realizes that Heero isn’t speaking anymore.

“Oh no. I’m sorry Heero, you’re going to have to repeat that. I was thinking about something else.”

He tilts his head to the side, his gaze as cool as ever. “Why do you do that?”

“Why do I – why do I get distracted? I’m sorry, it’s not normal, I just haven’t had lunch yet.”

“No.” He frowns. “Apologize. You apologize all the time.”

“Oh.”

She’s really…she’s really not sure, what to say. Does she apologize? She didn’t think so, no more than usual, surely.

“I’m – “ she starts to say, and then she realizes that she was about to prove Heero right. “You’re right,” she says instead. “I’ll work on that.”

He makes another _hm_ noise and looks at the computer screen. “I was just saying that there are some people I’d like to talk to. I’ve set up a meeting for this afternoon.”

“Oh, okay.”

“I’m saying that I’d like you to come.”

“Me? Are you sure?”

His gaze narrows, as if, he’s frustrated by something. What has she done now?

He breaks the gaze, and rubs his cheek. “I...sometimes have trouble, getting people to...open up to me.”

 _Ah._ Well. She’s not surprised by that. Interesting. Relena wouldn’t say it’s her strongest suit either, but, she can imagine that Heero comes across a bit more aggressively than she does.

“Just, tell me when and where,” she says, and she looks at what Heero’s been showing her, readying her ears as Heero starts from the beginning.

“We’re going to be late.”

Relena is already aware of this, but she’s startled to see him, nevertheless. “I’m sorry,” ( _she winces_ ) “I thought we were meeting there.”

“We’re not.”

“I can see that.”

“Let’s go.”

“Yes, of course. Let me find, my keys…” she starts looking for her purse. Where did she put it? It was right here.

Heero crosses his arms over his chest. “I’ll drive.”

She needs to bring a notepad and pen, probably her recorder; does she have time to print something out? “It’s really no problem, or, actually, it probably makes sense to go separately.”

His voice gets a bit louder. “We both have to be back here to type up our reports. I’ll drive,” he says again.

Relena does not at all feel like arguing. She finally finds her purse, shoves the most important folder into it, and stands. “Lead the way then.”

See, the thing is, the thing she did not anticipate – that she did not _remember_ –

Heero drives a motorcycle.

He wordlessly pulls an extra helmet out of the seat and hands it to her, and Relena is so preoccupied with _staring_ at the thing that she takes it automatically. 

“You didn’t tell me – ” she starts to say. “What I mean is – I can _really_ drive.”

Heero just looks at her, coolly, buckling on his own helmet.

“There’s an accident on the highway. We’ll be late if you drive. Get on.”

“Get – get on? Heero, I’m wearing a skirt.”

She looks down at her modest, slim-fitting, knee-length skirt, the color of which was called _ecru_ online. He’s still just staring at her, impassively. 

Relena takes a steadying breath. She gives the motorcycle a warning look. Okay then. She grabs her hair into a loose ponytail and drops it down her blouse, then secures her helmet in place. It’s not her first time on a motorcycle, but, she’s not particularly fond of them. Less so when she’s wearing a constricting skirt and garters. 

Oh goodness. She casts her gaze to the roof of the garage. Garters. She’d forgotten about those.

Well, the security guard is going to get a show.

Heero is already straddling the bike and revving it to life, so, she does the only thing left to do: she hikes up her skirt to mid-thigh, and swings her leg over, taking the seat behind him.

“Please don’t drive too fast,” she requests, grabbing hold of either side of his leather jacket. She can’t be sure, but she suspects he’s smirking a little, as that little noise comes from his throat.

It could be worse, she supposes, as Heero eases them out of the garage and then into the steady flow of traffic. He is a very adequate driver, cautious even, and they pull up to the office building in record time. They’re not even late.

“Good afternoon. We have an appointment with Dorothy Catalonia?”

The receptionist smiles, politely, and is so professional that she doesn't even have to double check her computer.

“Of course Ms. Darlian. Please have a seat. Can I bring you any tea or coffee?”

“No thank you,” Relena smiles, impressed. She has always liked receptionists. They’re her people, so to speak.

“I need to use the bathroom,” Heero suddenly blurts, and Relena subsequently has the impression that Heero did _not_ go to boarding school.

The receptionist doesn’t miss a beat. Unflappable, really. Impressive.

“Of course Mr. Yuy, right this way. Ms. Darlian, Ms. Catalonia will be with you shortly if you’d like to make yourself comfortable.”

She escorts Heero away, and Relena sits in the waiting room. She looks around, crossing one ankle over the other. It’s beautifully furnished, and it reminds her to take a moment to finger comb her hair some more. It could be a lot worse, she supposes, and Heero did give it a _hm_ of approval when she’d asked him if it was in any semblance of order after their drive.

The door opens.

“You must be Relena Darlian.”

Relena stands, looking once to see if Heero is suddenly going to appear two seconds after he’s left. She’s on her own.

She walks forward with a polite smile. “Ms. Catalonia, thank you so much for meeting with us. Heero will be just a moment.”

Dorothy steps back and holds the door open, ushering Relena inside.

Dorothy’s office is no surprise; it’s huge, flawlessly decorated, and includes a small seating area, a desk with a collection of surrounding chairs, and a full-sized conference table further off. Dorothy leads Relena over to the seating area, where a tray of hot tea is waiting for them. It looks lovely.

“This isn’t a very formal visit, is it?” Dorothy asks, conversationally, and Relena decides that she likes her.

“Not at all,” she assures her, taking a seat. “Heero and I are just putting together information.”

“How’s that going? I have yet to meet the infamous Heero Yuy.”

“Infamous?”

Dorothy smiles, and, it’s just _feline_ is what it is. Relena is momentarily struck by it. But then, she shouldn’t be surprised that Dorothy has a spine. No one just _gets_ an office this large without earning it first, and their line of work doesn’t exactly reward pleasantness.

“Why yes,” Dorothy continues. “You knew he was instrumental in taking down the Libra Project, yes? _Years_ they spent working on that merger, and, in the matter of days – _poof_.” She pops her fingers open for emphasis, then goes about pouring the tea. “How do you take it, Miss Relena?”

“Cream, no sugar,” she says, automatically, reflecting on what Dorothy has said. She’s suddenly feeling not quite so confident in her assessment of Ms. Catalonia.

“Yes,” Dorothy continues, almost to herself. “The Libra Project. I lost quite a lot of money on that, I should say.”

“I’m sure he meant no ill will.”

“No, of course not. And he was right in the end. But, still.” Dorothy picks up her own cup of tea, the porcelain cup impeccable in craft and design. “You know. Money.”

Relena holds her own cup between her hands. She’d really like to be off this topic of conversation. “Please tell me who helped design your office,” she says instead. “I just have to know.”

Dorothy tips her head back and laughs. She actually _laughs_.

“Oh Miss Relena. I knew I would like you.”

Relena doesn’t know quite what to think of _that_ , but, she smiles into her tea as Dorothy starts talking about the finer points of the décor, and Relena listens pleasantly until Heero arrives. Then it’s down to business, Heero and Relena taking turns asking about specific budget items and various projects. Relena listens to it all, taking mental notes here and there, while Heero taps with intermittent, furious bursts on his laptop. It takes a while for Relena to realize that she’s mildly impressed, in the literal sense of the word, that Dorothy has no one with her: no advisors, no accountants, no lawyers. She can rattle off the most minute detail about her company as if she were discussing the weather. She knows everything, and on the rare occasions she doesn’t know something, she barks into some sort of telecom device until a person immediately answers, and provides all the information Heero is asking for.

It’s impressive. There’s really no other word for it.

“Are you two hungry?”

The question catches Relena off guard. “I’m sorry?” Inwardly, she flinches. Now that she’s aware of it, she realizes she _does_ apologize quite frequently. Dorothy stands.

“I’m starving. And it’s nearly dinner time.”

Relena looks out the window, realizing that it is, in fact, dusk.

“I know just the place,” Dorothy continues, pressing a button on the intercom until the receptionist from earlier walks in.

“Please tell them to bring the car around, Luna. You know where we’re going.”

“I’ll let them know you’re on your way, miss.”

She leaves, with a little bow. Dorothy pauses to watch her go.

“God I love her,” Dorothy says, watching the secretary’s retreating back. “I loved the last one, I’ll love the next one, but,” she sighs. “I love this one.” She turns back to Relena, and there is nothing polite about the gleam in her eyes. “Shall we?”

Relena knows her eyes are a little wide. “Of course.”

Dorothy’s _car_ is actually a bright white limo, which, should maybe be surprising but is definitely not. Heero gets in without a word, his messenger bag and enclosed laptop securely at his side. It’s a quick drive to the restaurant, and Dorothy spends most of it writing quick emails on her phone. She takes two calls which last less than ten seconds, and seems mostly annoyed about them.

“You’ll love this place, Miss Relena, it is the very best,” she says, when they pull up to the curb. They waltz in, the host seemingly knowing exactly who she is, and are escorted immediately to a table. It’s surprisingly unstuffy this place (she’d even go so far as to call it semi-casual), and as soon as they’re seated, square wooden cups and a bottle of saké appear, as well as large platters of raw fish.

“I don’t even know _what_ fish this is,” Dorothy admits, pouring saké into each of their cups. “It’s always good. Doctor J knows what I like,” she adds, with a wink. “Drink up, Miss Relena, you’ve had a busy day.”

She feels like it would be impolite to say no, but, she can’t find it in her to reach for the cup. “Oh I’m alright,” she tries to say. “I try not to drink on weekdays.”

“Oh come _on_ , Miss Relena!” Dorothy goads, pushing the cup towards her. “I simply insist. This is the absolute best in the colony.”

Relena somehow doubts that, it being a large colony and all, but, it really would be rude…

“Alright. Just one drink then.”

Relena is very, very drunk.

“You’re really very pretty, Miss Relena.”

Relena hates it when people tell her that. But she’s definitely not sober, so.

They’re somewhere else now. Somewhere where people are dancing. They’d left the sushi place after maybe the best meal of Relena’s life, questionable fish and all, and didn’t even pay. Dorothy had simply decided that she was done, got up, grabbed Relena’s hand, and dragged her out the door with Heero in tow. The limo was already waiting to take them away, and it was on the ride that Relena realized that she couldn’t remember ever seeing the bottom of her little wooden cup.

“Thank you,” she says, polite to the end.

“You are. You’re _beautiful_ even. You should model.”

Relena is momentarily stunned. “Thank you,” she says again, somewhat automatically. She takes a sip of her vodka soda and wonders how she got it. Where are they? What happened to Doctor J?

She hates that she flicks her gaze at Heero, who is sitting so straight in his seat, arms crossed and staring into the crowd. She takes no pleasure in the way that he seems to scoff without making a sound. Boo. He’s listening, then.

“I want to dance,” Dorothy declares. “Dance with me, Miss Relena.”

Relena puts up her hands. “Oh no. Really, I don’t dance.”

“Then how fortunate for you that I do. Dance with me.”

Relena is starting to embrace that nothing about this evening will go as she wants. Dance? On a work night? Okay. She shrugs off her blazer, remembers that her hair is still a bit messy, and shrugs her shoulders. Oh well. She’s going to dance.

Dorothy helps her not look like an idiot as they move on the floor. Relena follows along, compliant as ever, wondering when she can go home and sleep.

“Isn’t it fabulous?” Dorothy calls out, over the music. Relena barely cares, she’s just trying not to fall over her feet.

“What is?” she calls back.

“This place! I own it!” Dorothy holds Relena close and then does some sort of move that has Relena looking back at their table upside-down.

Heero is watching them through the crowd. Somehow, through all the people, he manages to make eye contact with her. Oh phooey. She frowns at him.

She’s never going to hear the end of it, probably.

“It’s very nice,” she agrees, when Dorothy pulls her back up. Dorothy holds Relena against her again, Relena’s back to Dorothy’s front, and whispers into her ear. “Look at all these beautiful women, Miss Relena. Look at them. And you’re the most beautiful of all.”

Relena feels warmth rise to her cheeks. She can’t remember the last time she felt so completely inebriated.

“You are – too kind – “ Relena starts to say, as the room starts to spin a little. No, she’s spinning. Dorothy spins her back to face her, and Relena knows her cheeks must be rosy and bright.

“Aren’t I beautiful too?”

Relena nods. “I think I need to sit down,” she says, and when she tries to step away, Dorothy holds on to her tight. She looks into Relena’s eyes with her own half-closed, her lips stretched into a lazy smile.

“Don’t take too long,” she murmurs, and then she releases her, and turns back to the dance floor.

Relena releases a breath and walks back to their little table. Her feet won’t go in a straight line, she’s realizing, and she nearly rolls her ankle trying to step around a rather amorous and oblivious couple. She sinks to her seat with relief.

“I. Am. Drunk,” she announces.

Heero snorts.

“You were drunk before we left the restaurant.”

“Dorothy is trying to seduce me.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Is she succeeding? I could find my own way home tonight.”

Relena squints at him. “I’m going to model.”

He’s not so much smiling, but, even in the limited light, she can see his eyes are glittering with barely checked amusement. Relena looks around. There are scantily clad women on podiums dancing, provocatively. Have they always been there? Goodness what a place. She could do that, she thinks. She could dance provocatively. She wonders briefly if it’s the sort of job that has good benefits. Then she notices that several of the women have bills stuffed into their underwear.

“Are we at,” she starts to say. “Are we at a _strip club?_ ”

Heero turns to face her a little. “You’re just noticing this now?” he deadpans. “I’ve been offered five lap dances already.”

“I thought that was a specialty drink!” Relena screws up her eyes and rubs her forehead. “I want some water. No, I want another drink. No, I want to dance.”

“Your choice,” Heero offers, and he crosses a leg, resting an ankle on a knee.

Relena sticks her tongue out at him, picks up her drink, sips it while rolling up her sleeves, and goes back to the dance floor.

And she dances.

“Heero, I can’t go up the stairs.”

It’s come out less as the voice of a respectable colleague, and more like a – a whiny toddler, actually.

She can’t remember ever, _ever_ being as drunk as she is now, and the delight of it is starting to wear off. She has no idea what time it is, only that, her feet are really dirty, she ate half a plate of french fries, and she feels moderately sick.

And she’s pretty sure it’s a work night.

Heero sighs next to her and helps guide her to the elevator. _Oh right_. Her building has an elevator. She’s half all over his side, drooling a bit on his sleeve, singing to herself. She’s made many new friends tonight. Many new friends who have excellent taste and a few of whom are decent kissers. Wait. How does she know that? Oh it doesn’t matter. Her stomach is warm and full of flickering light, and she couldn’t care less about anything.

The elevator doors open.

“I can do it,” Relena insists, with half her usual confidence.

“No you can’t,” Heero argues, and they get onto the elevator together.

“Hey,” she whines. “How d’you know where I live?”

He’s staring at the floor numbers as they illuminate in turn. “You told me. Four times.”

“Oh.”

“We’re almost there.”

“We’re almost there,” she mimics, in a grumpy sort of voice.

Heero smirks down at her.

She juts out her lower lip and frowns up at him. Wow she’s drunk.

“I’m very drunk.”

“You’re – “

“Very drunk, yes.”

His smirk turns into a smile, and the elevator doors open on her floor. They walk together to her door and he disentangles to get her keys out of her purse. She drops her weight against the wall and watches him.

“I’m going to be a model,” she tells him. “Everyone said so.”

“So you keep telling me.”

He’s seemingly having trouble finding it in the semi-dark hallway.

“You could model too. We could model together.”

He doesn’t respond.

“Everyone in the office thinks we’re,” she hiccups. “Fucking.”

Her face burns. She hasn’t used the word _fucking_ since she was in high school.

“Everyone?” Heero asks, one eyebrow raised. He’s found her keys, and he opens her door first try.

“Yes,” she sighs, walking right past him into her own apartment. She doesn’t even turn on the lights, but Heero does, rudely, and she blinks at the brightness. That doesn’t feel good. That’s not her favorite thing.

“I’ll turn on the shower,” he says, and Relena again mimics him, but this time silently, to herself. She tosses her shoes somewhere in the direction of her bedroom, then unfastens her skirt and lets it fall to the ground. Then she remembers that Heero is in here, somewhere, and she immediately pulls it back up again, holding it tight against her hips.

“Heero did you see that!” she calls out, and she gets some sort of muffled response in return. Hopefully that means no, then.

She walks to her bathroom and finds Heero testing the water. “It’s good,” he tells her, pulling the shower curtain aside for her to get in.

Her cheeks are red hot. “I have to get naked. I mean I have to take off my clothes first.”

He smirks. “I’m aware.”

“You’re in here.”

“I didn’t want you to slip and fall to your death. We’re not done with the project yet.”

She frowns at him. “Well. Close your eyes.”

He does, dutifully, and a part of her knows that he won’t even peek, not even a little bit. So she starts shedding her clothes, making a small, messy pile of it all near the door. She steps into the shower, which is deliciously hot, and lets out a groan of pleasure.

“This is, without question, the _best_ shower I have _ever_ been in.”

“It’s _your_ shower.”

“And it’s the _best._ ”

Heero chuckles.

Relena stands under the water for maybe way too long (time really has lost its meaning) eventually working up to being able to shampoo her hair and wash her face. Her stomach feels queasy but manageable, so long as she doesn’t have anything to eat or drink for the rest of her life.

She turns off the water, listening to the final drips from the faucet toward the drain.

“Heero are you still there?”

“Yes.”

She doesn’t know why it surprises her.

“I need a towel.”

He pushes one past the shower curtain. It’s clean and fluffy, and she wraps it around herself. “Can I have another one for – “ she starts to ask, but then Heero puts another, smaller one, into her line of sight, and she smiles as she wraps it around her hair. “Thank you.”

She pulls back the shower curtain and the bathroom is full of steam. Heero is where he was when she went in: leaning against the wall, arms and ankles crossed, staring at the floor.

“You’re so nice,” she says, pleased. “You should do this professionally. This should be a professional service.”

“I already have a job.”

Relena hiccups again. “Oh yeah.” Her eyes get big. “You’re not going to tell anyone, are you? I mean – I know it wasn’t on company property but – “

“I’m not going to tell anyone, Relena.”

She stares at him, with her big, drunk eyes, and wonders if he’s ever said her name before.

“I need to go to bed.”

Heero holds out a hand, and she takes it, her feet a bit wobbly as she walks back to her bedroom. She pushes the blanket out of the way and sinks between the sheets, which are fresh and cool and nice smelling.

“Drink this, before you fall asleep. And take these.”

She scowls into her pillow. “Are you trying to drug me, Heero.”

“It’s ibuprofen. You want this.”

She sticks out her tongue at him, but takes the pills, and drinks the water. She puts the empty glass back on her bedside table and pauses, her head on her pillow. She looks up at him. He hasn’t turned on a light in her bedroom, but, he’s still illuminated, by the city lights from outside. He’s very handsome.

“Everyone thinks we’re sleeping together,” she whispers, into the space between them.

It seems like it takes him a moment to respond. “Oh yeah?” he murmurs back. Relena nods.

“Catherine says so.”

And it’s just. There’s just…too long, of a pause, at that. She can barely think straight, can barely think at all, but surely he should be protesting by now? Surely he should be laughing or smiling cruelly or leaving, or, or something?

But instead he’s just looking at her. He’s looking at her and looking at her and she can’t read his expression in the dark. And then, when she’s trying to prepare for the worst, he uses one long finger to push a hair of hers off of her face.

“Get some sleep,” he tells her, and she can’t tell whether his hand lingers or not.

“You’ve got to be at work in the morning.”

Relena has never been more unhappy in her life.

Waking up is a mistake. It just is, pure and simple. Everything about it is a mistake. The sunlight is a mistake. The bed is a mistake. The towels are a mistake. She feels as if she were legitimately run over by a truck. Every muscle protests every movement, and her nerves run rampant under her electrified skin. Her face is pallid, the rings under her eyes black as night. She definitely cannot eat breakfast, in part because her stomach is pure acid, and in part because she’s definitely going to be late for work.

It takes her too long to realize that her car is at the office.

Her hair is still wet when she gets into the cab, righting her stockings. Leaning down makes everything worse, so she has to take a deep breath and sit up the rest of the way. Her stockings will just have to be crooked.

She keeps her sunglasses on as she walks through the building, smiling weakly at everyone, definitely unsure if she’s going to vomit on any of them.

But she makes it to her office, and is only mildly surprised to find Heero in the chair by the window again.

“Heero!” she says, maybe too loud. “What are you doing here?”

He looks up at her, cool and assessing. “I’ve been here all night.”

“All night?” she questions, dropping her purse and focusing all her energy on making it to her seat. Is it possible she’s still drunk? Maybe. Oh god. Where are all the trashcans.

She doesn’t need them immediately, which is a relief, as she notes that there is one under her desk and one by the door. Good to know. Just, good to know, in general, where those are kept…

“Heero, you should go home and sleep.”

He looks at her for too long, and then rubs his face with his hand.

“Couldn’t.”

“Okay.” She takes off her sunglasses, and closes her eyes, resting her forehead on the cool hard glass covering her desk.

She just wants to, just, close her eyes for a second. Everything is awful. Is Heero still there? Oh it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. She just needs a second. Just, one second…

“Ms. Darlian?”

Relena jumps out of her seat at the sound of Treize’s voice. “Just a second!” she shouts, and then she realizes she has no reason to. Her stomach gives a really unpleasant lurch at her sudden movement.

“Treize,” she says, holding a hand over her mouth. “How good to. How good to see you.” She has to keep her mouth closed more than open, she thinks.

“And Mr. Yuy,” Treize continues, and he and Relena both turn to where Heero is still in her chair.

Totally asleep.

His head is tilted back over the seat, his hands propped on the keyboard of his laptop which is _definitely_ going to fall at any second. His mouth is hanging open, and he’s sleeping.

She reaches out a leg and kicks him, and Heero wakes up with a start. His laptop starts sliding off his lap, but he catches it, seamlessly, and stands with it in one hand.

“Mr. Khushrenada,” he acknowledges.

Treize is examining him and humming. “I’d like a progress update if you wouldn’t mind.” He glances again at Relena, looking her up and down. “It can wait until after lunch.”

Relena keeps her lips tightly held. She manages to nod.

He leaves, which is, a complete blessing, and she breathes hard through her nose for ten full seconds before she darts under her desk, grabs the trashcan with one hand and her hair with the other, and hurls her ever-loving guts up.

This is how Heero learns that after bad nights, she prefers to drink the coffee black.

She drinks it with an accompaniment of some very bland crackers, nibbling cautiously as she reviews their documents in preparation for meeting with Treize in an hour. She looks up as Heero walks into the room. He looks better; slightly less pale, his eye hollows looking a bit less grizzly. He’s shaved, somewhere.

“It’s not finished,” she warns him, meaning the project they’re working on.

“I know,” he answers, taking one of the seats across from her desk. “I got a lot of work done last night though.”

She squeezes her eyes shut. “Did you come straight here? This could’ve waited.”

Heero presses his lips together, and looks at her. He seems to be considering what to say. “I get…excited, at, new intel.”

Her eyebrows raise a little. “I’m sorry?”

He scrubs his face again. “I…find it hard…to sleep, when there is…new, information.”

She knows she’s staring at him. It sounds like Heero is saying that he stayed up all night, just to work, because, he was honestly too eager to wait. _Wait a minute_ , what?

“What do you mean, new intel?”

He glances at her and then back at his computer screen.

“I bugged Catalonia’s office.”

“You _what?_ ”

“Well really I put a closed-circuit tracer and upload patch on her personal wifi port, but, you could call it a bug.” He looks at her again. “It took most of last night to upload to our server and then self-destroy.”

“You – “ Her head is spinning. “You _used_ me as a distraction?”

He holds her gaze for a moment, then shrugs, a little. “You could call it that.”

“Heero!” she cries. No. She can’t speak that loudly. She squeezes her eyes shut. “You could’ve told me.”

“It was more fun not to.”

She cracks one eye open.

“You had fun,” he insists, and she frowns at him.

“Just, show me the new information,” she sighs, and she makes room for him on her desk.

“Maybe it’s not such a good idea for you two to be working together.”

Heero has just left Treize’s office, after Treize had asked Relena to stay behind. They’d just finished their presentation, which is, even with Heero’s new information, not nearly complete. There are gaps the size of L-2 which still need filling.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

Treize gives her a knowing look.

Okay. Well, she’d found some make-up in her purse and managed to make herself look less _hungover as shit_ , and Heero had similarly looked semi-presentable when they’d all been talking, but, well. He’s got a point.

“Would you believe me if I said it was part of our assignment?”

Treize snorts. “I would. And, I can’t argue that the two of you get results, but, still Relena.”

She meets his gaze.

“I worry about you.”

She feels her cheeks warm as she wonders whether Catherine’s gossip has reached him. Probably, but, she can still hope.

“I can handle it, Treize,” she assures him, hoping he won’t ask her explicitly if she is sleeping with Heero Yuy because she probably wouldn’t be able to live it down. “Trust me.”

He nods with a wave of his hand at the door, but stops her halfway out. He wants results by next week, he tells her, or he’s giving the assignment to someone else.

Relena finds a ribbon in the back of a desk drawer and ties up her hair. She takes off her jacket, rolls up her sleeves, and sticks a pencil between her teeth. It’s time to get to work.

She’s sent Heero an email about their new deadline, so she’s not at all surprised when he shows up an hour later, frowning. They really start to attack things then, throwing wild ideas at each other, tracing a literal path from one piece to another with post-its and electrical tape.

It’s late, when Relena realizes she’s hungry. She checks her wrist watch. 

She doesn’t want to stop working, not now, but, she won’t hold it against Heero if he wants to go home.

“I’m going to order food,” she announces, and she feels like Heero would say something if he didn’t want some or he was going home. She orders on her computer, and rushes down to get it when it shows up. Greasy, menstruation-worthy Chinese food, full of garlicky noodles and steamed vegetables. She grabs some paper plates from the break room and some bottled water.

But she frowns when she gets back to her office.

Heero is still typing away on his computer. There are a dozen different stacks of paper on her desk, each very carefully organized and covered with notes. She doesn’t want to move any of it, really, but there’s no space to eat.

“I suppose, we could eat, on the floor?” she suggests.

Heero glances at the desk.

“We can go to my office.”

“Your office?”

He snaps his laptop shut and stands. “Yeah.”

Relena realizes, following him, that she wasn’t sure he even had an office. Heero’s got both their laptops under one arm as well as the most recent folio they’d been reviewing, and he pushes the door open with his free hand. There are very few lights on in this part of the building and even fewer people, despite its wide-open nature and high-end furnishings. She’s not often over here and doesn’t exactly know the layout well.

Heero turns the lights on, and her mouth opens reflexively.

“ _This_ is your office?”

Heero walks around his desk and taps some keys on his desktop keyboard, gesturing instead at the large, glass conference table taking up half the room. His office is easily twice as big as hers.

Relena buttons her lips and manages to look annoyed by the time he meets her at the long glass table, while pulling cartons out of the bag.

“You could’ve told me you had an office,” she says, mildly petulant.

Heero reaches for one of the cartons and opens it, looking inside. “I like yours better. It has southern light exposure.”

He looks around and grabs a pair of chopsticks off of the table, sitting at one of the industrial-looking chairs and eating as he begins to read. Relena frowns at him some more. Seriously? she wants to say. _Southern light exposure?_ She picks up a carton of her own and empties some of its contents on a plate. Hmm. Now that she thinks of it, he _does_ spend an inordinate amount of time in the chair by the window… 

Relena smiles, and, tucks in to her dinner.

“Heero,” Relena murmurs, an hour later. Her eyes are wide. The half-empty cartons are mostly clustered on the other side of the table, and she’s got her pen poised over a line item in the budget. It…goodness.

He must be able to understand the cadence of her voice, because Heero gets up, walks around the table, and looks over her shoulder.

Her stomach is squirming, and finally, not in a bad way. In an excited way. This is – this is huge. This is familiar: it’s a breakthrough, and she hasn’t felt one in weeks. Oh my goodness. “ _Heero_ ,” she says again, with emphasis.

She leans back a few inches so she can turn and see his face. He’s still staring at what she’s pointing at with her index finger, and his eyes are similarly large.

“That’s – “

“Yes.”

“But – “

“I know.”

Too many pieces are lining up in her head, too many pieces which she knows are lining up in his own. Oh my gosh. “ _Heero_ ,” she breathes, louder now, and he turns to face her.

The excitement is just radiating in her eyes, she knows, because she sees it in his. And the smile is just stretching now, and, they must be of one mind only, because he starts to smile too, and it’s just –

They are really, very close together.

It occurs to her seemingly before it occurs to him, that he’s got one hand on the table and one hand on the back of her chair, and it’s late, and they’re alone.

She suddenly remembers what she’d said last night.

And she also remembers that he…that he hadn’t exactly, objected. Oh goodness. Oh no. She takes a quick breath, and licks her lips.

Heero tracks the movement, and, the excitement in her stomach turns slightly…molten.

He really is just very handsome, is all it is.

“This is good,” Heero breathes, and she’s glad that one of them can think straight, can say real words. “We can use this.”

Relena nods, again contending with the warmth that is flooding between her thighs. She should go home maybe. She should get some sleep. This isn’t new. Heero isn’t new. 

“I,” she starts to say, again self-consciously wetting her lips. “I never got to thank you, for last night.”

He’s still staring at her mouth. She wonders if it would be better if he was staring somewhere else.

“It’s fine.”

“It was very thoughtful.”

“It wasn’t a problem.”

Relena sucks her lower lip into her mouth, and notices when his pupils flare, ever so slightly, in response.

Her heart is beating a bit faster.

“I know I said some ridiculous thin—“

He leans back, exhaling through his nose. Her stomach clenches. He doesn’t step away.

He looks down at her.

“It wasn’t,” he says, and for a moment she has no idea what he’s talking about. “It wasn’t, ridiculous.”

Yes her heart is definitely racing now.

Relena has to look away. She has to, or, she’ll start to do something ridiculous, like, start taking off her blouse. She looks back at the papers in front of her, and her breathing turns completely shallow when Heero leans back down, over her shoulder.

“Now, tell me what this means,” he murmurs, and Relena allows one cool, shaky exhale.

The way they say good night an hour or so later – it’s…it’s different, somehow. They walk together to the garage, Relena’s car definitely where she left it, Heero’s motorcycle in his usual spot. Her smiles are tentative now, their gazes lingering, as they part and agree to meet again tomorrow.

She thinks about him the whole way home. She thinks about him in the shower. She thinks about him when crawling between her messy sheets, in her pajamas, thinking about how he’d been in her bedroom just the night before. She thinks about him and tries desperately not to think about him, as she tries to convince her body to cool.


	2. cream, no sugar

There’s a cup of coffee on her desk the next morning, still hot.

Just the way she takes it.

She smiles at it, sipping it eagerly as she checks her email. When he shows up a bit later, pausing in her doorway for just a moment, as if, to confirm he’s allowed to enter; that’s new. That’s different, somehow, just like the way that she seems incredibly aware of him now: where he is, where he’s not. How he stretches in the sun every so often, releasing the tension of typing and reading in a cramped position.

He seems to look at her more now. Or, she finds herself looking at him more, now.

It’s incredibly unprofessional, probably. Definitely he could be showing her things by sending them to her via email, instead of, putting his laptop in front of her and leaning so low over her shoulder the few times he does it. Surely she doesn’t have to tie up her hair again, or, neglect the uppermost button of her blouse, when it comes undone. She finds that she bites her lower lip now, when she’s reading, and it’s not until mid-morning that she thinks that maybe she intentionally forwent a slip, because, when she crosses her legs, the clasp of her garter is visible through the fabric.

She likes garters. She’s always found them more convenient, somehow, than the tights that go all the way up to your navel. Stockings allow for a greater range of motion, she finds, for days when she’s not wearing slacks.

And usually, she really does, wear slacks.

“Are you hungry?” Heero asks, and she hates that she swears she hears two meanings now, which, clearly the man is talking about food. It’s nearly closing time, and they’d worked through lunch.

Relena lets out a cool breath.

But then, she _tsks_ to herself. She glances at Heero, still in that chair.

“I’m meeting someone for dinner tonight,” she tells him, and it feels like quite possibly the worst time to do so.

Heero tilts his head, in silent askance.

“My, my brother,” she explains, quickly. Her pulse has felt jumpy all day and it won’t be soothed. “And his wife. We try to meet up a few times a month.”

He nods then, shutting his laptop softly and leaning back in his chair.

“Your brother is Zechs Marquise,” he says. She doesn’t ask how he knows that. She’s not surprised or bothered that he knows, somehow. Relena nods. Heero is staring at her mouth again. Or maybe he’s not; from a few feet away it’s hard to tell.

“I’ll walk you to your car.”

She’s a few minutes late to her dinner with Zechs, which is new for her. They’re at their usual restaurant, and she smiles at the staff she knows as she steps around tables. But her smile falters when she sees her brother’s expression…and Lucrezia’s…and that of a new face, of, someone else, someone close to her age, who is standing beside the fourth chair at the table.

Zechs steps forward and wraps her in a quick half-hug.

“This was _not_ my idea,” he seethes into the side of her head, and, she’s almost too amused to be mad.

Almost.

“Relena! So glad you made it. It just so happens our coworker was able to come along. Have you ever met Chang Wufei?”

It’s late, and Relena can’t sleep. 

She’s still thinking about her work day. About Heero, mostly. About dinner, and Wufei, and, and everything.

She wants to… No. She shouldn’t.

He’s probably not even awake.

A window is open in her apartment, and it lets in a cool breeze through the curtains. She reaches for her phone.

 _So,_ she types, trying not to think, _it was set-up_.

Why is she doing this? Why is she even bothering to let him know? He doesn’t need to know. But, she can’t stop her fingers at all.

_He spoke even less than you usually do._

_Ah_ , Heero responds, and her heart starts beating...faster, somehow. He’s awake. He’s responding. _How was dinner_

A ridiculous grin splashes across her face. Heero making small talk, this is new.

_It was fine._

She hesitates. Her thumbs hover over the keys, trying to decide whether to text what she wants to. _Nothing special_ , she finally adds. She wishes she could say something more. Something with a double entendre about…about that giant desk of his, or, or… Warmth blooms on her cheeks. Goodness, what’s happening to her.

She almost misses the text, and when she reads it, she has to read it twice.

_Did you like him?_

She types back with her heart in her throat.

_No._

There is a very long pause between texts, and she’s almost given up on him, when it arrives:

_Good._

Relena is taking special care to dress the next day. She wishes she wasn’t, but, she can’t stop herself. It’s like the first day of school all over again, and everything she touches makes her think about Heero. She’s just started to reflect that he’s unlikely having the same sort of difficulty, when she encounters, well, _that_ blouse. The one that’s been at the back of her closet ever since Lucrezia very helpfully pointed out how see-through it is, the one that was low-cut to begin with and definitely inappropriate for work.

She bites her lip as she fingers the fabric. It _is_ , definitely, inappropriate for work.

And yet, she’s definitely putting it on.

There’s another cup of hot coffee on her desk when she walks in, along with a note:

_Don’t make plans tonight._

The day is, maybe, about the same. It’s Friday, and staff starts to go home early in preparation for the weekend. Heero spends most of the day in her office like usual, and, they definitely do get work done. It seems impossible, given that her thoughts are so chaotic, and she’s distracted so readily, but, they’re getting closer. Honestly they are.

Heero looks amazing in his button-up and slacks, the sleeves rolled to the elbows to reveal his muscled forearms. She wonders at one point how someone even gets muscles like that. She works out, but, she’s never encountered a _forearm_ exercise. She feels as though she has a perpetual blush.

And it’s just – she hopes to god she’s not imagining it – but he’s _looking_ at her. Honestly he is. She swears his eyes went wide when he saw her blouse, and, he definitely stopped in the doorway, for a moment too long. For Heero that means exactly two milliseconds, but, it was there, surely. And when she turns from their tracking board, she swears she finds him staring at her ass.

She prays to _god_ she’s not making it up.

Because by lunch she’s having a hard time with…everything. Her tongue feels heavy in her mouth. She’s uncomfortable but finds it wholly necessary to keep her thighs pressed together. Duo stops by her office to wish her a good weekend around four, and he pulls a face when he sees Heero in it. Then he looks at her in this way she can’t distinguish but would likely describe as _proud_ and _crude._

So? She always nibbles on the ends of her pens. She’s sure that Heero’s reading something, which, is why she hasn’t heard him type anything in a while. While she’s chewing on her pen.

The clock slips from four to five, five to five-thirty. They’re still in the office. Her half-cup of tea has gone cold but still sits on her desk. 

Relena realizes, after a while, that it’s quiet. Well, quieter than usual.

She turns, and finds Heero leaned over his legs, head in his hands. His laptop is on the ground, and she doesn’t know how long it’s been like that.

“Heero?” she asks, and he looks up at her. He...he really _looks_ at her.

Heat instantly rushes between her legs, but she ignores it, again.

It’s the hair, definitely. It’s the hair, and the dark eyes that won’t leave her alone. It’s _absolutely_ the motorcycle. And it’s also the way he looks at her, like he’s doing now; how it eats her up inside. She feels just so _much_ when he looks at her like that, how she could live and die by that gaze.

“You went on a date last night,” he says, finally.

She laughs, softly, without effort. “Not really.”

He tilts his head to the side. “It was a date.”

“We didn’t – we didn’t exchange information, Heero. I wouldn’t exactly call it a date.”

He stands, all at once, exhaling through his nose. She often forgets how tall he is. She’s not petite, she’s, well, average, or slightly above average, or something, but Heero is, unquestionably: tall. She likes it. He takes a few steps forward, until he’s looming over her, looking down at her.

“I would.”

She licks her lips, and says softly: “If you say so.”

He looks all over her face then: at her hair, her cheeks, her nose, her lips.

“I don’t want you to go on dates,” he finally admits.

Her breath is getting stuck under her ribs.

“Not sure you really have any contro—“

“You know what I mean.”

She swallows, because, she does.

Goodness. She looks up at him. She _does_.

“Heero,” she starts, cautious. “Did you want to, I mean, were you hoping to go on a date, with – with me?”

He looks at her again, probing, unflinching, and ultimately, he nods.

Her breathing is just not something she can control well. She can’t, and, she needs to, because her brain needs more oxygen, surely. Surely it needs something more than she’s currently giving it, because, because of everything.

“I’d like that,” she admits.

Heero crouches in front of her, so now he’s looking up at her. Or he would be, if, he was looking at her face. He’s looking instead at her thighs, or more specifically, her skirt.

Heero wets his own lips, and then he brings up his hand, and…touches, just the hem, of her skirt.

He traces the span of it, as it passes from one knee, to the other. He goes back to the first, and then, her breath hitches, because he starts moving his finger up her thigh. He’s tracing the slight indentation there, the seam of something she can’t see, until he reaches the slight and unmistakable bulge halfway to her hip. It’s the size of a paper clip, maybe. His finger circles it, and her world falls apart a little. There’s a heavy and persistent _throb_ at her core, and she can barely handle it. It’s the clasp of her garters, and, they both know it.

“You wear garters,” he says.

“Yes,” she answers.

Heero exhales, roughly. His thumb brushes against the clasp, his fingers stretching around her thigh. He presses his thumb down.

Heero looks up at her, and Relena presses her thighs together again.

“I want to kiss you,” he murmurs, and Relena feels her shoulders finally sag.

“Yes,” she whispers back.

If she were alone she’d fan herself, but, she’s not alone, not even a little bit, as Heero stares and stares at her lips. He brings his free hand up to cup her face, rubbing his thumb against her full, wet bottom lip. 

Her heart is beating so loudly in her ears when Heero leans up on the muscles of his thighs, and kisses her.

Her eyes don’t close right away. For a full moment they’re still open, as she feels his mouth against hers, and her blood is pounding, pounding, pounding, drowning out all sound. He’s kissing her. 

Heero Yuy is kissing her.

She closes her eyes finally, when he’s not immediately pulling away. She doesn’t want to stop. 

But - he’s leaning back. She can feel it, the way she leans forward to follow him, and she makes a noise with her throat just after they come apart.

He freezes.

“Please,” she begs. She actually begs. “Don’t - don’t stop.”

Her eyes are still closed, but she can still hear Heero’s shuddering inhale.

“Okay,” she thinks he says, because right after, she’s pushed back into her chair, and…

Heero is _kissing_ her.

Her mind goes purely dizzy with it, the feeling of being kissed by Heero. Her mouth opens easily, readily, greedily, and his does too; their tongues touch, their lips meet, as Heero pushes her farther and farther back into her chair. He’s kissing her full on and not from above; he must be on his knees in front of her but she’s too scared to open her eyes, too scared to have it all stop.

Because, well.

She was just hoping for a kiss, honestly she was, but, now that she’s gotten it...she wants _more_. 

Relena leans into him, breathing in his intimate scent, letting his clean-smelling shampoo fill her up as she wraps her arms around his neck. Another sound ekes past her lips, some needy, pathetic sound, and Heero swallows it, gripping her back with strong fingers.

She’s sliding off her chair, sliding farther and farther, feeling on instinct where Heero is. And she _won’t_ open her eyes so she _doesn’t_ know how he does it, but he holds her up, until he’s sitting up on the ground, and she’s on her knees between his thighs, kissing and kissing and kissing him.

She digs her hands into his hair, and she knows immediately why it is so popular: its silken texture, full and thick and lovely, and she can grab it while he’s grabbing her.

“Relena,” he breathes, on one full exhale, and she pushes her whole body against his. His hands rove her back and she can barely believe what is happening to her. She’s kissing him, on her office floor. Relena leans her weight on him more fully and Heero lets her, lets her push him back toward gravity. They’re kissing and kissing, and when he’s finally on the ground their lips break apart, and she has to move her legs, her skirt riding up so she can straddle him.

“Relena,” he says, this time in warning, because she’s sure they’re getting close to the point of no return. _Good_. 

“Yes,” she answers, and she leans down again to kiss him some more. She presses herself against him again, feeling her full, heavy breasts against his chest. Heero groans against her lips, and she sinks down, sinks until her skirt won’t let her anymore, and she’s hovering right over his hips. Heero’s hands curl in the fabric of her blouse.

“Relena,” he says, the loudest time of all, trying to pull his head away.

Relena sits back up, exasperated. 

“ _What_ , Heero.”

He props himself up on one elbow and stares at her in the relative darkness of her office.

“I just need to make sure that you know what you’re doing.” What?

“Heero?” She drops her hands to her thighs. “What about me looks unsure. Tell me so that I can change it, immediately.”

His eyes, soften, at that. They soften, and her stomach tightens, and, and, then...he grins.

“If you say so,” he says, and quite suddenly, Relena is on the ground. He’s flipped her, one smooth gesture, and she wonders if he’s 100% muscle or just 99% or something, because there’s just no effort involved in it. It’s insane. It’s - oh goodness. Heero. She needs to feel him. She needs to see him. She needs all of it, and she doesn’t want to wait. Her hands fly to his shirt and she starts undoing the buttons like mad.

Heero kisses her again with a tenacity that makes her muscles go loose and pliant. She squeezes his hips with her thighs, urging him closer, her feet sliding against the ground, one heel snagging on the floor. She kicks it off. Heero has one hand anchored by her head, and his other is moving. It’s moving down her side, then back up again, groping and probing and testing all of her curves. She squirms against him, trying to give him more, trying to give him everything, and then his hand grabs the hem of her skirt and _yanks_ it up without notice.

Well then.

She got his shirt open. It hangs down between them and she slides her hands inside, feeling his broad, muscular chest as if committing it to memory for a future of blindness. The heat between her thighs is just as overwhelmed as her nerves, and it roils, and knots, and desperately wants release. Heero slides his hand up her thigh, his fingers on cool nylon, until he reaches the bare clasp of her garters. He sucks in a breath, bites down on her lip, and doesn’t stop. He doesn’t stop until his hands are brushing against her underwear, and another mewing noise dumps unimpeded from her throat. _Yes._

Heero strokes the damp lace, he strokes it and strokes it, and Relena cannot for the life of her keep her hips still. She wants _more_. She wants more _now_ , she will refuse to allow him to stop. “Heero,” she gasps, needy, and he groans into her open mouth as he pushes the lace aside.

She is soaking, soaking wet. They both know it. She’s been dealing with this for days now, the discomfort, the need to go to the restroom more often just to make sure there’s no… Goodness. She’s just, she _needs_ this, she needs the feeling of his fingers brushing her, top to bottom, bottom to top. Heero is making some sort of hissing noise that she can barely hear, because all she can feel are his fingers on her, the tingling sensation running up and down her legs. _More._

Her mouth drops open, when Heero presses a finger inside. _Oh god_ , she thinks, totally unsure if she’s said it out loud or not. Heero eases his finger in and out of her, a gentle, cautious build-up, and she bites her lip to suppress the sounds her body is going to make, regardless. She doesn’t even know how it’s happened, how it’s got to this, but Heero is touching her, _Heero_ , and she’s going to come on his hand if he doesn’t stop.

He seems to realize this when she does, because he picks up his pace, adding a finger, _moving_ his hand in some sort of motion that hits every wall of her. She grabs his shoulders, curving in on him, breathing hard through her mouth. “ _Heero_ ,” she whines, she pants, and her whole face screws up as she feels everything building and building between her legs. He’s not stopping. His hands won’t stop. They’re moving inside of her, over and over, and everything hits at once. “ _Ah!_ ” she cries, she is completely unable to stop, as she comes, every muscle going tight as a bow string, and then, and then irredeemably limp. She’s moaning, she knows, some string of unintelligible sounds as Heero slows but does not stop the movements of his hand. His mouth is on her neck, kissing lazily, and, and, and she can’t stop coming almost, the feelings are still reverberating around her thighs and legs and body. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.

She can’t do anything except kiss him. She has no strength left, none at all, and she would probably do anything for him in that moment. The hormones flooding her make her want to bake, or something. Make her want to give him her god damn car if he wants it.

“D’you want to give up your motorcycle?” she mumbles, and Heero pulls back with an amused grin.

“What?” he asks her, and Relena shakes her head.

“Nothing,” she breathes. Oh she’s a mess. She grabs her head on both sides, fingering her disastrous hair. “Nothing at all,” she sighs.

Heero smiles down at her, leaning to kiss her lightly on the lips. She can barely muster the energy to kiss back.

She watches with a hooded gaze as Heero examines her body. What is he thinking? Not that it matters too much. He breathes in deep through his nose, and his eyes get stuck staring at her blouse. He licks his lips, then fingers the fabric near her navel. His hand is wet, and her face feels warm.

“This is a new shirt,” he says, and it makes Relena smile.

She hums to herself. “Not new,” she corrects.

He raises an eyebrow at her.

Relena fingers the collar of her blouse. “Just, thought it could come out for a special occasion.”

Heero snorts, his lips stretching into a smile.

“I hope it’s worth it…” he says, and he starts kissing his way down her buttons.

She can’t say she ever expected to take Heero as a lover. Meeting him in the beginning, sure, he was handsome and tall and (definitely her type), but, he never really seemed to care about her, despite her attempts to be friendly. She’d sort of always had the impression she was pissing him off somehow, which was fine, until, well, _now_ , when her whole skirt is bunched around her hips and Heero is sitting in her office chair and she is sinking onto his lap, and not in a friendly way.

This is...most definitely, flying in the face of the human resources policy. 

But she simply can’t stop herself. She’s not done with him. Not even a bit. And the idea of driving to one of their places first, even making it to her god damn car is just wholly untenable. She wants him _now._ She’s been aching for him for _days_ , and when he grabs her exposed breast in his hand, sucking the tip into his mouth while _thrusting_ so deeply inside her - it’s just...who could be reasonable about this? Who could give this up? 

Why would anyone be polite about this, about the way she comes in his lap, and he comes in her, and it’s just - it’s amazing.

Relena is staring at him. She has no idea what time it is. Most of her clothes are half-off or at least askew, and they’re using her blazer as a makeshift blanket while they stare at each other on the floor of her office. 

The lazy, contented smile on his face is warming her up inside, as is the way their limbs are tangled.

“I have to tell you something,” she admits, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. She bites her lower lip and glances at him. “I’ve had naughty thoughts about that big table in your office.”

He grins, broad and satisfied. “Too many windows,” he laments. “Plus it’s bugged at least three different ways. Ah. Which reminds me.”

He casts his gaze around the surrounding area, quickly landing upon a large paperweight that they’d knocked to the ground at some unknown point. He looks at the antique clock on her bookshelf, takes aim, and hurls the weight at it, and Relena is gasping over the sounds of it crashing into a dozen pieces on her office floor. 

“Heero!” she shrieks. “What was that for! Are - are you trying to tell me my office was _bugged_?”

He doesn’t even blink. “Not anymore.”

She scowls, but, there is no sting to it at all.

Someone is running the vacuum cleaner.

Relena can hear it, somewhere, and her eyes pop open when she realizes a few things at once:

She’s still in the office. 

She’s still on the floor.

She’s mostly naked.

And one of Heero Yuy’s legs is between her own.

She releases a breath and notices the rest: the dark indigo of early morning shines through the windows, and his leather jacket is covering them, though it does very, very little. Heero, it turns out, runs hot per body temperature, and she had no problem staying warm due to his presence.

He’s still asleep.

“Heero,” Relena whispers, smiling a bit.

He wakes up with unnerving ease. One second, his eyes are closed, and the next, open.

She stares into his eyes as he seems to process their environment, and it apparently takes him less time to get to the same conclusion.

“We should go.”

Her smile deepens. “I’d say that’s wise,” she agrees. “It’s also Saturday.”

Heero leans up to look around the room, then rolls away so he can right the majority of his clothes. She takes the time to do the same. She’s definitely a mess, but, somehow she can’t be embarrassed by it.

Heero stands and offers her a hand, which she gratefully takes, letting him pull her to her feet.

There’s a quick, potent moment where they stand too close together. She feels it, the closeness, sizzling through the air like some electric current. Judging by Heero’s sharp, shallow intake of breath, he feels it too. Uh oh. 

Relena bites her lower lip, shifting her hips a little. Heero must _hear_ her wanton need of him, because, he turns a lazy grin toward her, and then a pointed glance at the desk. It’s still predominantly covered with the extent of their research, successfully untouched despite their very _ardent_ touching of each other the night before. Relena cannot help the grin, but she does manage to hold up a finger. 

“Absolutely not,” she warns, and Heero chuckles under his breath before pressing a quick kiss to her lips. 

“C’mon, princess,” he teases. He _teases_. “Let’s go get coffee.”

They find the one 24-hour place within a 10-block radius and get coffee and donuts to go, munching them in the car as they drive to Relena’s apartment. 

It seems a more appropriate place to work through the weekend, in theory.

To _work_. Ha.

At least, it’s much more appropriate to work in her living room naked, than in her office naked. 

Because, they _do_ , work. Sometimes. In fits and bursts. Mostly they work on, em, other projects, the main goal of which are related to the inner workings of their erogenous zones.

She just...goodness she just _can’t_. She cannot stop. And Heero’s no better, honestly. Every time she puts on clothes Heero finds some excuse to peel them off. Her water bill is going to be insane for the number of times they’ve bathed together, or the glasses of water drunk over the sink and off bedside tables. But it’s also: she’s never seen him smile so much, never seen him so open and laughing, and, it just happens. It just goes like that. It just...works.

“We have to be at work in the morning,” Relena points out, somewhat amused, as Heero lazily kisses his way over every square inch of her chest. 

He hums into her skin, breathing into one firm kiss right at her nipple, sucking it into his mouth on instinct, on a sharp, undeniable need. She hisses and squirms, her overly sensitive skin protesting.

Heero releases her and exhales through his nose, a gentle sort of sigh.

“We could call in sick,” she offers, only half joking as she combs his hair with her fingers. Heero grins against her, still hovering, and drops his head on her sternum.

“Too obvious,” he argues, and Relena rolls her eyes. 

“I have a feeling it’s going to be obvious anyway, Heero.”

He leans up on his forearms and kisses her.

And it is, probably, _definitely_ , when they show up to work Monday morning. They arrive separately, because Heero had to go back to his apartment for a change of clothes, but he comes in to her office to deliver a vanilla latte he’d picked up on the way in, and she can’t imagine that anyone doesn’t know they spent the whole weekend fucking.

She really cannot keep her thoughts straight while sitting at her desk alone, because she keeps reliving...everything. The way he’d used her chair. The way he’d ground her into the office floor, between the desk and the wall. Someone’s cleaned up the pieces of her clock. 

And shouldn’t she be pissed about that? She can’t. She can’t even be a little bit mad that she’s been under surveillance all this time, because, of the cloud. The cloud she floats around on.

It’s a relief when Heero shows up so he can share her amusing discomfort. Their workday quickly devolves into a game of chicken, seeing who can make the other one capitulate into a chaste meeting in the handicap toilet first. 

It’s so, so ridiculous. She needs to be stopped.

Treize calls right before they’re about to make some grand mistake, and it’s probably for the best, because _someone_ should wipe the smirk off Heero’s face and it really won’t be her. Not in public anyway.

They gather their stuff and head to Treize’s office, and she would be glowing regardless when they waltz in, but now it’s tenfold.

Sometime between all the sex on her couch, in her kitchen, in her shower, and in her bed, they’d found the smoking gun, as it were. It was right there the whole time maybe, but when you’re trying so hard to read it while on your back and Heero’s head is between your thighs, things tend to _come_ together awful quickly.

Heero is borderline gloating as they present their findings with a snappy little PowerPoint, highlighting in duplicate all the ways that Dorothy’s company has been laundering money to a rival corporation perpetrating massive securities fraud via a very poorly chosen second-in-command. 

Treize is impressed. He says so, at least twice, making sure he understands every detail as they had. And then he’s congratulating them, and asking Relena to stay behind again, and she watches Heero go with her bottom lip between her teeth so she won’t smile at his back.

She turns around and Treize isn’t smiling. 

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Relena?” he asks, sliding his fingers along the edge of his desk. 

Relena’s unsure what he means, but, she’d rather not get ahead of herself.

“It was fine,” she says, shrugging. “He’s not so bad to work with, really.”

Treize hums a little, propping his cheek against the web of his hand. “I have to say I’m surprised to hear you say that, Relena. Heero isn’t known to...play well, with others.”

“I will humbly disagree then, for his sake. I found him to be both hardworking and professional.”

Treize glances at her, his thoughts impenetrable, unreadable. She’s been on the receiving end of this gaze often enough to know not to say anything until he does.

“I have it on good authority that this is his last project,” he ultimately says, and Relena feels her thoughts... _pause_ , for a moment. What? “He interviewed with the Romefeller Foundation just a few weeks ago. I believe it was his plan to use the successful completion of this project to help secure the adequate...compensation.”

_What?_

Relena knows that her usually well-crafted poker face is...slipping. Her features are pulling together suddenly, a small frown she cannot control.

“I’m sorry,” she breathes. “That can’t be possible.”

Treize sighs.

“I imagine he’s been dragging this out, Relena. He probably figured it all out _weeks_ ago and has been delaying to secure the best possible offer.”

Her mouth opens on an immediate rebuttal, but she stops her throat from forming words. Her mind is buzzing right now, trying to catch up, trying to test the truth of Treize’s accusation. Could it be true? Maybe. Really though - _maybe_. But, but to _use_ her like that. Relena feels the hairs on the back of her neck go up. She’d thought the work was dense, complicated. She’d asked so many dumb questions. So many late nights. And if – what, he was just _playing_ with her? So he could –

 _Stop._ Relena closes her eyes, and knows her emotions are all over her face.

“I’m sure there’s been some misunderstanding,” she says, and for the first time maybe ever, she sees the traces of pity in his gaze. Honest to god _pity_. “Let me – I’ll go talk to him.”

Treize waves with one hand. “By all means,” he says, and she can feel his eyes on her every step of the way. 

Her thoughts are scattered everywhere at once. What is happening? Where is Heero. She has questions, she has too many questions, and she needs him in front of her _now_ so she can ask them. Oh her mind is running away from her. She needs to see him.

Relena makes directly for his office, running in to Duo on the way _(“Whoa, hey Relena! How’s it going with Mr. Wonderful, ha ha”_ ) – she ignores him – only slightly thrown by what this part of the building looks like during peak working hours. Heero might honest to god have a secretary. Goodness. Relena finds his office, finds the god damn _name plate_ (Heero Yuy, Special Research Operations) and flings open the door without a second of pause.

The office is empty.

She grits her teeth. Of course. Of course he’s not even there. Her hand _squeezes_ the doorknob. She throws it shut and storms away. No, he’s not in his office. She knows exactly where he is.

Relena typically keeps her door open, and she usually likes that it’s in a less-stuffy and less-trafficked section of the building. She likes the peace and quiet, the easy access to the ladies toilets and that her hallway is only traversed by people coming to see her.

But today she almost wishes she could sneak up on him. Really, she wishes she were stealthy.

Relena stands in the doorway and knows her hands are balled into little fists.

Heero is again in his favorite chair, bathing in the mid-morning sun like the enthusiastic housecat that he is. She is seething, hopping mad, and it goes undimmed when Heero turns his lazy grin to her, already closing his laptop to stand.

But then – he must be able to read her expression, because, his hands pause on the computer.

“Relena?” he asks, and she barely knows where to start.

She has too many thoughts in her head. Too many ridiculous ideas. _Using her. Using her. He was using her._

“Relena,” he says again, standing this time, his brow furrowing over those beautiful blue eyes.

“I need to ask you some questions,” she blurts, and her voice is cold and hard and resolute. She sees him stand up straighter. “You get to answer yes, or no. That’s it. Yes or no, Heero.”

It takes him just two quick, never-ending seconds to respond. “All right.”

Her hands tighten at her sides. She takes a step into her office.

“Did you, or did you not, interview at the Romefeller Foundation.”

She sees his eyes go wide, sees the truth of it all over his lying, manipulative face. _Oh god._

“Answer the question Heero!”

“Yes,” he snaps, and he bares his teeth on the instinct to say more, but he successfully smothers it. She takes half of a shaky breath.

“This was your last assignment.”

Another minute pause. “Yes.”

“You – you solved this weeks ago.”

This pause seems to stretch on. It stretches on, even though it’s nothing, as pain streaks through his features.

“Yes,” he says, and her world falls apart a little. Her shoulders drop. She can feel the emotions tangling in her chest, crawling their way up her throat. There are honest to god tears, burning the edges of her eyes.

“You used me,” she squeaks, and she doesn’t even want to hear the answer. She really doesn’t.

“N—“ he starts to say, and she sees his hands curl at his sides. He looks away from her, and squeezes his own eyes shut. “Yes,” he breathes, and Relena feels everything change. _Oh no_. The tears well in her eyes and only impeccable training and a long family history of repressing one’s emotions save her from openly crying. She takes a shuddering breath. Her purse is right next to the door in a chair and she grabs it.

“I’m taking a god damn personal day,” she swears, and she turns right on her heel and marches out.

She hears him call out her name, some stupid, juvenile instinct, but there’s no way in hell she’s turning around.

No, she’s racing past everyone, head down, ignoring everything, and if Heero’s following her it’s his own damn fault for what it looks like to everyone else.

She gets in her car and just drives.

At first it’s with the intention of just going home. Just going home and ordering take-out and maybe changing into leggings and running until her legs give out. But…

But she takes one look at her building, and knows, she doesn’t want to be in there any time soon. The sheets will still smell of him. His socks will still be under her bed. The throw pillows will still be scattered all over the living room floor, and then she’ll have to think of him.

No. She keeps driving.

She’s driven halfway across the colony before she realizes she has nowhere to go. All her friends are at work. It’s barely ten a.m. on a Monday and she has nowhere to go. She spends an awful few minutes parked outside a public dog run, falling apart all over her steering wheel, destroying her make-up. Oh she was such a fool. She takes just a few moments to throw herself the absolute most pathetic pity party, and then she wipes her eyes, stares into space, and makes a plan.

She goes to the movies.

She watches something ridiculous, whatever was playing next, and eats a whole thing of popcorn in the middle of the mostly empty theater. Then she goes to the colony’s second largest water feature, some artificial beach where they keep having to ship in more shells, and digs her toes in the synthetic sand.

Maybe she should go back to Earth for a while. Maybe she should use some of that vacation time she’s been letting languish, except that, nothing’s changed; she still has nowhere to go, and...no one to go with.

Milliardo works all the time. Lucrezia went on a girls weekend with her to L-2 once and then spent the whole time working herself. Duo and Hilde vacation together, and...well, that’s sort of it really. End of list. Pathetically she wonders if her ex would ever meet her somewhere, but, according to all the tabloids, Trowa’s apparently been pretty tied up with his new boyfriend lately, so…

Relena sighs, and leans back on her hands. A few kids with their parents are playing in the distance, their exuberant shrieks nearly drowned out by the waves. 

Oh what a mess.

She treats herself to coffee and a very long walk, which gets old even in her sensible flats, and finally decides to head home. Tomorrow will be better, probably. Tomorrow and then the day after, ad nauseam, until one day she’ll figure it all out. 

Relena parks her car and keeps her keys handy, remembering the few long walks to her apartment in days past. 

Drunk, with Heero’s arm supporting her sagging waist as she whined into his shirt. Then not so drunk, the cramped space of the elevator leading to breathless kisses and groping hands, followed by easy smiles and soft giggles. And later, running down the stairs for the delivery guy after the elevator was taking too long, not wanting to be away for a second more than necessary.

All these things she’s felt, all these things that had held golden, beloved status in her tired little heart.

The elevator doors open to her floor, and Relena looks up as she starts walking to her apartment.

Heero is sitting in the hall outside her door.

She sucks in a shallow breath through her nose, only half-surprised. Okay.

She has to pause anyway, just to open the door, so she does the braver thing and stops right in front of him, putting her hands on her hips. He’s still sitting, and he looks up at her. Someone might mistake his gaze as defensive, or hostile even. But the cold set to his eyes, the drawn expression, he’s...

Scared. In the way that he can be, Heero is nervous.

“I brought you coffee,” he says, and her frown deepens. “I know you’re usually on to herbal tea by now.” He looks down at the cup.

He’s been there awhile, then. 

She takes the luxury of one whole second to decide what to do with him. Shutting the door in his face feels like it would be pretty satisfying, but she knows he would likely just sit out there all night and her neighbors would eventually complain. Bringing him in to her apartment feels like an even bigger risk, though.

She sighs, and drops her hands.

“Come on then,” she says, and she unlocks her front door and leaves it open. She doesn’t check whether he’s even following, as she flicks on the lights, puts down her purse, and starts picking up throw pillows. When she’s got them all, she sits on her newly made couch, crosses one leg over the other, and stares at him.

He’s still standing right inside the door. At least he’s closed it behind him, but, his laptop bag is still over one shoulder, and he’s still holding on to the (presumably cold) cup of coffee at his side like he doesn’t quite know what to do with it.

“I – “ he starts to say, when she’s made it clear enough that she will _not_ be speaking first. He takes a quick breath. “I want to tell you about something.”

She looks at him expectantly. No, she’s not going to be helpful. She feels one split infinitive away from kicking him out, so, she just shrugs, as if to simply say: well?

His hand tightens on the strap of his bag.

“I took the interview at the Romefeller Foundation to try and hack in to their systems.”

She purses her lips. A convenient story.

He sighs a blustery sigh and drops his bag. Heero glances at the couch next to her, and then chooses to perch on one of her bar stools instead, putting the coffee on the counter. “A few months ago I figured out that Treize Khushrenada was – well, _is_ – attempting a corporate takeover of Romefeller. Dermail Catalonia – Dorothy Catalonia’s grandfather – has an advanced form of cancer. It’s not public knowledge yet. I don’t even think Dorothy knows, but Treize does. He’s known for a while. The Foundation should rightfully go to Dorothy after Dermail dies, but, I think Treize is going to try and gain control.”

Her brow furrows, and she bites the inside of her cheek. Heero continues.

“I wanted to do at Romefeller the same thing we did in Dorothy’s office; plant an upload patch and surveillance tap so I could monitor any correspondence that Treize probably has already.” He looks her in the eye. “He’s going to try to do it, Relena. I don’t know yet if he’ll succeed.”

“That doesn’t seem possible.”

He just keeps looking at her. Eventually, he shrugs a shoulder.

“I solved the Dorothy thing most of the way a few weeks ago, yeah. But I needed to get into her office just the same. And – “ here he pauses, and she could swear his cheeks color, just the tiniest bit. “And what you found, when – “ Oh she is not going to be helpful. “When I was here. That really was something I’d missed. That was genuine.”

She crosses her legs the other way. Hmph. Part of her is already starting to believe him and wondering if she’s being silly to do so.

“Well,” she says. “Treize knows you were there.”

“I’m aware of that.”

She raises an eyebrow at him.

“Now.”

Relena sighs and puts her hands on the couch, uncrossing her legs so she can lean forward. “Heero, I barely know what is going on, and I definitely don’t know what to believe.”

“You should believe me,” he says, voice gravely, serious.

She purses her lips at him.

He looks down at the ground for a moment, his broad shoulders sagged as low as they’ll go. He seems to be figuring out what to say. And, there’s just; he looks so… No, she couldn’t describe it. He looks so sad, somehow. Defeated. His whole body is cowed over her bar stool, one foot on the ground, the other propped on the lowest rung. She’s never seen him look like this, and his hands tighten on his thighs.

Relena breathes through her nose. There is...a little tangle of feeling, inside her ribcage, that wasn’t there before. Like the nerves from the stomach migrated up.

“ _You should believe me_ ,” he pushes.

Relena doesn’t know what to say. She’s still grasping for the strains of being mad at him, because that is something she understood. She even understood the sex part, the undeniable attraction part. This? This is different. This is Heero bringing her coffee different. This is semi-grand romantic gestures different. Relena swallows against a dry throat.

“Why,” she breathes.

He looks up, gazing at her face, eyes darting between each of hers as if thinking too fast. “You know why.” She really doesn’t.

“Then tell me anyway.”

He frowns at her, still thinking, and she lets him stare at her. 

“I like you.”

Relena drops her head then. What was she expecting? A declaration of – no. she hardly knows how she feels; she doesn’t need Heero to start spouting poetry. She’s not some romantic teen anymore. She barely feels mad anymore and that’s the most uncomfortable feeling of all.

“I want to keep seeing you.”

The tangle in her chest rises to her throat, which she fervently ignores. She stands and crosses to the stove instead, grabbing the kettle and bringing it to the sink. 

“You want to keep seeing me too.”

She doesn’t respond. She puts the kettle full of water onto the stove, turns it on.

“Relena.”

She pulls out a mug. Grabs her favorite peppermint tea.

“ _Relena.”_

“I don’t need you Heero,” she finally says, and she means it. She turns and leans against the counter behind her, crossing her arms. Her cheeks still feel flushed. “This just started. I like you. I like you rather a lot. I don’t need you.”

He is still frowning. He turns his whole body to face her fully. She wants more maybe. She wants him to say more. Maybe he can tell. He clenches his jaw.

“I’m – I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry that it didn’t come up in the whole weekend of our relationship.” He says it with maybe more sting than he means, because he looks away to take a quick, shallow breath. He drags a hand through his hair and looks back up. “No. I’m sorry that it all happened so fast. I’m sorry that it didn’t happen faster.” He just looks at her, from across the bar of her kitchenette. “I’m just – sorry.”

Relena feels her fingers tighten.

 _Fine._ She – she believes him. She’s not mad, she believes him, hmph. 

“Please don’t ask me to leave,” he says, and she can see his teeth when he says it.

Her stomach begins to warm. She will not give those feelings a single inch.

“You don’t want to leave?”

“No. I want to take you to bed.”

The heat blooms everywhere now. 

“Heero,” she starts to complain, but, she’s got no actual complaint to finish the statement with. The kettle is starting to whistle. 

He tilts his head to the side. 

“You want me to.” She doesn’t respond. “You want me to take you to bed. You want me to fuck you right here against the counter.”

She opens her mouth to protest, because, honestly, language, but – ugh. He’s right. A little bit. She blames the smell of him, still all over the place. The peppermint tea they’d shared in the afternoons. All the good memories. All of it. The kettle’s whistle is near shriek now, and she can’t find it in her to turn it off.

No, she can’t move, because Heero is moving. He’s moving and so she’s gone very still, watching him, like someone waiting for the attack. He seems to be cautious about it, but, definitely making right for her, until he’s standing in front of her. She’s brave enough to sustain eye contact, brave enough not to drop her tight grip on her crossed arms. But then Heero just reaches around her, and shuts off the burner. Warmth is definitely covering her skin now. He’s standing so close. Why doesn’t she have an electric kettle? Those shut off on their own. Honestly. She blames her mother for such a ridiculous gift as an old-fashioned kettle right now. He’s not even stepping away. _R_ _ight here against the counter._

“Say it,” he demands.

Her gaze hardens as she looks up at him, and finds it in her to look almost annoyed. God she wishes he weren’t so tall right now. She wishes he wasn’t tall, or handsome, or nice-smelling, or anything and everything.

“Not in the kitchen,” she breathes.

It takes a second for the humor to warm his gaze, but it does, ultimately, along with the curve of a grin to his lips. Oh goodness. What is she even – 

Heero grabs her by the waist and lifts her to the bespoke counter, so now he’s looking up at _her_. Hm. She can see his teeth, framed by that gloating little smirk. His hands curl into the fabric of her blouse.

“Ask me to stay.”

“Fine,” she says, arms still crossed. “Stay.”

“Don’t fight with me again.”

“You _know_ I am literally incapable of tha—“

“ _Good_ ,” Heero interrupts, and the rest of her protest is immediately swallowed up by a kiss.

Relena tries not to fall prey to him. Honestly she does. The first fight should really always go to the woman, she thinks. Women should have the luxury of winning the first one. But, forest/trees maybe. Battle/war. Or maybe she’s won after all, who knows. Who honestly cares. Heero picks her up off the counter and carries her in the direction of her bedroom, and she sighs against him, her tension ceding to happier, more potent emotions. There is so much more to talk about, so many more plans to make (oh goodness it’s _Monday_ ), but, it can wait, her body decides. Her brain and her heart and everything else agree. It can all…wait.

She lets her shoes fall off on the journey, and lets her unfinished tea go cold.

It can wait, she decides.

Tomorrow is another day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are love <3 Thanks for reading.


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